Jackie Kay, born November 9, 1961 in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a poet, novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her novel Trumpet, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998. Her 2010 memoir, Red Dust Road, which won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust's 2011 Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 2011 PEN/Ackerley Prize, are a funny but very touching tale that tells of Kay's quest for her family. The book later reveals that she spends her entire life searching for something that is already right in front of her, her family. Kay, a mixed-race child adopted from white communist parents in Glasgow, is eager to meet her biological father, Jonathan O., a Nigerian student, and her biological mother, Elizabeth Fraser, a Scottish nurse. (Birbalsingh)Red Dust Road begins in a Nigerian hotel where Kay meets her biological father face to face for the first time. Kay's resistance to accepting Christ as her savior, as well as her choice to be a lesbian, disappoints Jonathan O., a Reformed Christian, and prompts him to pray for her for several hours. Following this scene, Kay takes us back to a juvenile Kay from the 1960s accompanied by her adoptive parents, Helen and John. Her mother (as she calls her adoptive mother) informs her of the minute details about Kay's biological mother and father that she knows about. The flashbacks mentioned above are offered as shared memories interspersed with additional memories culled from various moments, primarily of Kay discovering and ultimately uniting with the real people from her mother's tales. Despite the fact that Kay shows compassion for her biological parents, it is more than evident that she writes with immense cordiality, affection and adoration for...... middle of paper .... .. or used to protect those momentous occasions. In the first reading, I accompanied a young mixed-race woman, Jackie Kay, who embarks on a twenty-year journey to find her biological parents, not to mention the quest to find herself during this long but exhilarating process. Kay's complex tale is captivating in many different ways, including creative, cultural and sentimental. His sincerity and open-mindedness, as well as his comic play on words, make this a superb written account of an intimate expedition. I also accompanied a girl who grew up in Antigua, Jamaica Kincaid, on a harrowing adventure revolving around the life and death of her youngest brother from AIDS. During this journey, Kincaid also explores topics such as family, race, and migration. Reading both memoirs made me realize the importance of finding and highlighting your voice through your accounts..